Jewish Museum Berlin

Daniel Libeskind's zigzag of titanium-zinc in Berlin is the most emotionally direct building here. Nearly 350,000 people toured it while it stood empty before the 2001 opening, and that tells you something: the architecture carries meaning on its own. Underground axes lead to the Garden of Exile and the bare Holocaust Tower, and tall concrete voids cut through every floor; one holds Menashe Kadishman's installation Fallen Leaves, a floor of steel faces you walk across. The exhibition on Jewish life in Germany is thorough, but the angled walls make some galleries hard to read, so budget time for the spaces themselves.